The shares opened even lower at 150p - only fractionally above its all-time bottom of 149.6p hit in October.

Having been floated at 285p a share, AO stock soared by a third on its first day of trading at the end of February 2014, giving it a valuation of £1.2billion, and reached a peak of 380.5p a share in early March.

Investor discontent: Shares in AO World were in a spin today after a full year profit warning

But the stock soon dropped back sharply amid worries that a glut of high-priced flotations last year had drained investors' appetite and it has consistently traded below its offer price since.

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In its trading update today, AO - which operates in Britain and is expanding into Germany - said it now realises some of the recent revenue growth seen this time last year was due to the extra publicity around the company as it floated, making it harder to beat comparisons.

AO said as a consequence of a fourth quarter slowdown, its results for the financial year ending March 31 would fall slightly below market expectations.

The firm said it now expected revenue for the UK operations to be around £470million to £475million, about 2 per cent lower than expected.

And it believes its UK full year earnings will be around £16.5million, blaming 'Black Friday' sales which did not produce additional revenues but instead condensed them into a shorter period.

In a third quarter trading update on January 12, the seller of fridges, freezers and microwaves had credited a ‘large spike’ in volumes to ‘Black Friday’ for a strong performance, with sales for the three months to 31 December up 38 per cent.

Broker Jefferies International said it had expected the firm's UK business to make earnngs of £19.2million after the firm's founder and chief executive John Roberts said last month he was confident of meeting full-year targets.

In a note, analysts at Jefferies said: ‘No doubt pride dented in the AO management team.’

They added that ‘though revenue guidance has been missed and confidence in management's ability to guide undermined, a 2 per cent revenue downgrade is perhaps not a sign of terminal ill-health.’

But said ‘whilst a miss is a miss, investors looking for a near-term EBITDA result are in the wrong stock one suspects.’

AO boss Roberts said today: ‘While we are disappointed that sales and profits are going to come in slightly below expectations, we remain committed to our market-leading, customer-focused business model.’

The firm added that trading in Germany is progressing well and it is looking at other areas for international expansion.

Analysts at JPMorgan said: ‘Given the relatively low level of profitability currently being achieved by the group, this represents a material downgrade to estimates.’

In May, AO introduced the sale of audio visual goods such as TVs, to sell alongside its more usual larger items such as washing machines and fridges.